


Slave to Desire

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Bubble Bath, Cultural Differences, Desire, F/M, Love, Multiracial Relationship, Politics, Romance, Slavery, culture clash, emancipation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 02:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13649604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: In a steaming bath, Kalasin and Kaddar talk slavery.





	Slave to Desire

Slave to Desire

“See?” Kalasin ran a soft cloth along Kaddar’s collarbone as they soaked in a steaming tub full of floating bubbles of scented soap. “When you have me, you don’t need a slave to bathe you.” 

“I’m not convinced of that.” Kaddar leaned his head back against the tiles—as rich a blue as lapis lazuli—surrounding the tub, responding languidly to another one of her veiled appeals to abolish slavery. She knew that he thought she was too unceasing in her campaign to emancipate everyone, but as a Conte and a K’miri she was bred for persistence as much as she was for ardor. “Most of the best bath slaves have been schooled in the art of making a wash a pleasure since they were toddlers.” 

“I may be untrained”—Kalasin’s cloth trailed across the rugged terrain of his chest, climbing every mountain and descending each valley—“but I’m a natural, and I’m offended that you’d imply otherwise.” 

“You’re offended?” Swift as a cobra striking, Kaddar’s head shot off the tiles. “No, I’ll tell you what’s offensive, Kalasin. It’s you coming down here with your northern superiority complex—“ 

“You’re the emperor with control of the largest armies in the world.” Kalasin smacked his chest with the damp cloth, producing a satisfying wet whack, but if he felt any pain from her slap, he was too proud to flinch. “Do you honestly believe that you’re in any position to accuse anyone else of having a superiority complex?” 

“You think your northern ways are superior to our southern ones.” Kaddar seized her wrist to prevent her from hitting him again. “To you, we’re all primitives who have to be taught how to behave.” 

“That’s not true.” Kalasin blinked and blamed the moisture in her eyes on the mist enveloping the tub and their bathing bodies. “Nobody in the north believes the Carthaki are uncivilized. We admire your university and culture. It’s the Carthaki who despise northerners as a bunch of barbarians who eat with our hands and converse through grunts.” 

“You don’t converse through grunts but rather through shouts.” Kaddar’s scowl suggested that she was being too stubborn for his taste. “It’s enough to give any man a headache.” 

“You snapped at me first.” Kalasin twisted out of his grip and folded her arms over her breasts, suddenly not wishing for him to see them as he had a hundred times before. 

“Only because you nagged at me again about ending slavery.” Kaddar stroked a finger beneath her chin, which trembled with some dreadful combination of suppressed hurt and wrath. “I already told you a thousand times that I’m working to stop slavery, but I intend to change my world, not bring it crashing about our ears. I’ll not be the man who causes an empire that has flourished for centuries to crumble into desert dust.” 

“I’m not asking you to destroy our empire.” Kalasin lifted her chin so that his finger would touch only air and wished that he would understand that freedom wouldn’t be the downfall of his world but the expansion of it. “Just to no longer build it out of blood.” 

“All empires and kingdoms are built out of blood, Kalasin.” Kaddar, bitter as vinegar, snorted. “Whether it’s the blood of peasants or slaves makes little difference regardless of of how much haughty northerners flatter themselves on the contrary. Peasants are bound to the land as slaves are to masters, their quality of life as dependent on the nobles they serve as slaves are on the masters who own them. A kindly treated slave lives a more comfortable existence than the hardscrabble, dirt-to-mouth existence of a peasant laboring under the thumb of a tyrannical noble in the north.” 

“You say you want to abolish slavery.” Kalasin’s eyes narrowed to sapphire slits that were cold and hard as jewels. “Yet when you defend the practice so forcefully, it doesn’t sound as if you do.” 

“I want to end slavery.” Once again, Kaddar reclined his head against the tiles. “It’s just that, thanks to my university education, I know it will never happen in my lifetime. I can’t commit myself completely to a goal that is impossible to achieve. That would be the definition of foolhardy with an emphasis on the fool part.” 

“What good is your grand university education if it doesn’t let you imagine incredible things?” Kalasin bit her lip until the copper tang of her own blood trickled onto her tongue. 

“I can imagine many incredible things when you bathe me.” Kaddar offered her his most imperious look. “Please resume bathing me, dear.” 

“I’m not a slave.” Kalasin tossed her cloth across the tub and snickered as it sank to the bottom. “Summon one to bathe you if you’re too lazy to do it yourself since you love the cursed practice so much.” 

“I don’t love slavery. I love you.” Kaddar tugged her back into the warm water as she made to rise from the tub in a sheet of suds. “I don’t desire a bath slave. I desire you.”


End file.
